Prologue: Hallu (Sava)

Rich brown eyes looked up at her beneath a furrowed brow. “It’s too loud here, Sava.”

A hard lump formed in Hallu’s throat.

A million sounds saturated the air: shoes scraping sand, fabric rustling with movement, laughter erupting from nearby women, a shout exploding from one of the men as he grabbed the wrist of a child. There were bells ringing, sandbeasts bleating, and vendors calling out their wares.

But Kaela wasn’t talking about any of that.

Chapter 1: Anakai

A meaty fist missed Anakai’s chin by a finger’s breadth as he leaned back and spun away. The still-healing wounds on his back cracked open, the sting stealing his breath. Quay kicked the back of his knees, and Anakai fell to the hard, rocky earth of the Kelda Canyons.
He’d endured eight lashes of the whip fourteen days prior; that alone put him at a disadvantage, but Quay had recruited two other true-sons, Tarrek and Bohkan, to help him. It was three against one.

Chapter 2: Moloch

Thirty-three corpses with white eyes made a perfect circle around Moloch, trapping him, accusing him. Five of them were women, innocents killed in battle. The rest of them were men he knew. He understood what they wanted though they uttered not a sound.

He had led those men to their deaths at the Western Pass.

He’d been unable to save the women, kidnapped and used as shields, their lives ending in a gruesome fight.

He had failed them, and they wanted him to suffer.